Never Grow Up, Never Surrender!

I've always been a fan of dress ups.
You wouldn't believe how much of my childhood I spent charging around the place pretending to be Indiana Jones, some kind of deposed empress or a brave but kind of thick adventurer walking through a forest infested with wolves that could eat me at any minute*.

But seeing as Australia doesn't go in for Halloween, my dress up adventures pretty much ended once I entered high school.

It wasn't until University that I discovered the joy of comic books and various glorious associated nerderies and became aware of the phenomenon that is cosplay.

Australia doesn't have the sheer number and variety of comic conventions that America has either so you either have to be willing to wait and track one of them down or trick you friends into holding costume parties all the time**.

There are some characters I'd love to attempt if I ever get the opportunity and motivation levels just right.

For instance, as much as I'd love to pitch my voice as low as it can go and rock a Dr Mrs The Monarch costume, I'd be too worried about popping out all over the place to enjoy myself.
And as I have some of the curves but not enough of the height I think I'd be more likely to try Dr Girlfriend incarnation if I had the dedication to put together a slamming pink dress and pill box hat ensemble.

But until that day, I will just keep admiring the efforts of others, some of which I present here for your viewing pleasure.













*This one used to annoy Mum a bit as it invariably involved me stealing the knife sharpener out of the knife block (because it looked like a sword) and running about with it thrust through a sash which was really one of her scarves.

**And if they aren't willing to go to more effort than 'slutty [random occupation]' then what's the point?

Curiouser And Curiouser

At some point about a week ago an ice-cream freezer appeared at the bottom of my stairs. The sort you get in get in milk bars*.

You know the type. One of those long bench affairs with the sliding glass top and the brightly hued casing that is supposed to remind you of the joy and brightness of a summer's day... or drive you into an ice-cream buying frenzy by hypnotising you with vivid colour combinations and dynamic shapes.

This, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, was all a bit of a puzzler.

I didn't order a large cooling unit for frozen dairy snacks and no-one else in the building seems to be doing anything with it. As far as I can tell.

I mean there is a blue plastic tarp taped over the lid.

Probably to protect the glass and to prevent people from opening the lid and leaving it open to the elements and potential damage.

Probably not to hide the fact that it is filled to the brim with carefully sectioned and stacked dismembered body parts, like a better padded version of the Parisian catacombs**.

I mean it's not plugged into anything so if it is full of cadavers it'll probably start to smell soon. It's been pretty cold recently but not that cold...

Y'know I'm going to be really disappointed when I sneak a look under that tarp and find out it's empty or full of old Tupperware or something.

I always assume abandoned items are full of bodies. Well, except for that shipping container near my Dad's work. I'd just watched Resident Evil 3 when that one turned up so I figured it'd be full of... other things, but technically they'd still count as bodies so...***

What with all the lovely exciting crime dramas we have entertaining us and giving us unrealistic fantasies about the heart-pumping excitement of forensic labs, is this assumption surprising?

You can't open a port-a-loo door, garbage skip, investigate an abandoned car, frolic innocently near the local storm drain outlet or wake up in a strange bed without having a cadaver leap out at you in an exciting way just in time to usher in the opening credits. Anywhere a body can fall out in a startling manner, a body will fall out in a startling manner.

Of course I probably shouldn't automatically follow my first instinct on these sorts of things given that I am the kind of person who whilst having a shower will wonder if my having Awakening by The Damning Well blaring away in the background makes it more likely that I'll be attacked by a psychopath****.

I know I'm just being fanciful.

There's probably a perfectly logical reason for the ice-cream freezer to be there.

I'm pretty sure one of the fellows downstairs owns a couple of businesses. He's probably just keeping the fridge there until it can be delivered to its end destination.

Or until I play something appropriate on the stereo so he can stab me up in the shower and then put my bits in the ice-cream freezer.

Either/or.

*Uh... corner stores? Small shops with overpriced merchandise. Like the 7-11 except independently owned so they get to use the excuse of being 'small business' and 'battlers' to justify charging $4 for a 1-litre carton of milk.

**I shouldn't have watched the entire first season of Dexter in one night, I really shouldn't.

***Does that count as a spoiler? Nah, I don't think it does.

****Or, y'know, vampires.